Results for 2017

Soon enough, we'll have big-data-trained, machine-learning neural networks constantly analysing our credit rating, evaluating our work performance, ranking us in job and school applications, determining if we're fit to have children, and so on.

Ironically, the engineers devising these algorithms will have no real understanding of how they work, only that they meet some abstract performance criteria.

Mark my words: There's going to be lots and lots of incomprehensible and ridiculous "Computer Says No" in coming decades, when the Excel spreadsheet people "optimise" by offloading all bureaucracy and service jobs on to opaque, "authoritative" AIs.

Some British politicians suffer from an imperial reflex, however. For them, Britain lies at the centre of the world. We only have to state our aims and other countries will be generous enough to help us achieve them.

The British have never really accepted the fact that their Empire is gone and that they are now just another European nation, neither particularly rich nor powerful when compared to France and Germany.

True, Britain does outperform its Western European neighbours on several fronts: it is a uniquely miserable, unjust and unequal place thanks to the radical neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years.

Modern Britain is a corrupt, undemocratic financial centre in the Eurozone, burdened with an impoverished, unhappy, overtaxed and unneeded surplus population. And now they're leaving the Eurozone.

The only glimmer of light I can see in this Brexit business is that the consequences are likely to be so bad that it may effect some kind of political change for the better in the long run.

Academia was, [Graeber] muses, once a haven for oddballs – it was one of the reasons he went into it. “It was a place of refuge. Not any more. Now, if you can’t act a little like a professional executive, you can kiss goodbye to the idea of an academic career.”

Why is that so terrible?

“It means we’re taking a very large percentage of the greatest creative talent in our society and telling them to go to hell … The eccentrics have been drummed out of all institutions.”

A scholar, even for the sake of his scholarship, as well as for that of his life, must have other interests. Scholarship which is confined to one rut becomes antiquarianism: it needs a context, and the possibility of comparison, and the invigorating infusion of reality, and life. But then, of course, there is the opposite danger of dilettantism, the occupational hazard of the journalist. I think that one needs to be a disciplined specialist in one area in order to have a corrective standard outside that area—and meanwhile to have interests outside that area in order to preserve one’s balance and keep intellectually alive. — Hugh Trevor-Roper

If I were an optimist, I'd say that this heralds a new age where Europe moves away from the Anglo partnership towards a more humane and reasonable form of social democratic capitalism, leaving the Anglos to stew in their own corrosive neoliberal clusterfuck. But then again, I'm not an optimist.

Here, then, is the problem with [The Economist]: readers are consistently given the impression, regardless of whether it is true, that unrestricted free market capitalism is a Thoroughly Good Thing, and that sensible and pragmatic British intellectuals have vouched for this position ... Because its writers will bend the truth in order to defend capitalism, you can’t actually trust what you read in The Economist. And since journalism you can’t trust is worthless, The Economist is worthless ... it will play on your insecurity as a [reader] to convince you that all intelligent people believe that the human misery created in “economically free” societies is necessary and just. It will give intellectual cover to barbarous crimes, and its authors won’t even have the guts to sign their names to their work. Instead, they will pretend to be the disembodied voice of God, whispering in your ear that you’ll never impress England until you fully deregulate capitalism.

Totalitarian governments typically don't like sexy music. Too much fun, too transgressive. Sombre folksy stuff is usually more to their liking, Soviet and Nazi alike.

Alfred Rosenberg's declining influence in the cultural sphere during the mid-1930s could not rescue the most excoriated and most defamed form of music under the Third Reich, namely jazz. Regarded by the Nazis as degenerate, foreign to German musical identity, associated with all kinds of decadence, and produced by racially inferior Jews, jazz, swing and other forms of popular music were stamped on as soon as the Nazis came to power. Foreign jazz musicians left or were expelled, and in 1935 German popular musicians were banned from using the foreign pseudonyms that had been so fashionable under the Weimar Republic. Jazz clubs, tolerated to a degree in the first year or so of the regime, began to be raided more frequently, and by larger numbers of agents from the Gestapo and the Reich Music Chamber, who intimidated the musicians by calling to see the papers that certified their membership of the Chamber, and by confiscating their scores if they were playing music by blacklisted Jewish composers such as Irving Berlin. Tight control over radio broadcasts made sure that light music did not swing too much, and the newspapers announced with a fanfare of publicity that `Nigger music' had been banned from the air-waves altogether. Brownshirts patrolled summer beaches frequented by young people with portable wind-up gramophones and kicked their fragile shellac jazz records to smithereens. Classical composers whose music made use of jazz rhythms, such as the young Karl Amadeus Hartmann, found their music totally pro-scribed ... [However,] imported jazz records could always be purchased discreetly from back-street shops, while even Goebbels was conscious enough of the popularity of jazz and swing to allow some to reach the air-waves in late-night broadcasts. And if it could not be heard on German radio stations, then jazz could always be found on Radio Luxemburg, where, Goebbels feared, listeners would turn also for political news.

A curious fact about America is that, while its government has gradually slid into gridlock and ill-repute, its companies have become more globally dominant than at any point, probably, in history.

Curious indeed. Of course this couldn't possibly be a symptom of the gradual Western neoliberal transfer of power to the financial and business class over the past 30 years. No, that would be unthinkable.

Isolation, a harsh climate, and decades of candy import bans may have something to do with [why Icelanders love liquorice] ... why [haven't] their palates broadened as international trade has expanded and American candy proliferation has reached near-global saturation?"

A typical liquorice-hating American with tunnel vision concocts obscure historical explanations for why Icelanders like liquorice, all the while ignoring the glaringly obvious answer: Liquorice is tasty and delicious, and Nordic liquorice candy is simply superior to the nasty artificial-chemical-tasting junk produced by Anglo-Saxon civilisation.

Tonight I partied at a Russian bar in downtown London where I drank some Baltika with Leningrad playing in the background. At one point I went outside to smoke and was escorted by the Russian chaperone, who joined me for a cigarette. While we were out smoking, a large group of robed, peace-loving, earnestly-singing Hare Krishnas passed by, handing us some pamphlets about the One True Way. I found the whole thing deeply amusing. Then the Russian chaperone turned to me, smiled wryly, and said "I'd love to see them try this in Moscow." When I heard her say this, I must admit that I simply burst out laughing. She was clearly implying that they would be beaten up. Suddenly I realised just how precarious and difficult liberalism is. It's probably not going to work out in the long term.

Just watched a documentary on neo-nazism in Europe. One clip showed a group of young skinheads marching through an East German town shouting "Wir sind das Volk!" [We are the people] in unison. This was actually the slogan used in the anti-communist protests of 1989-1990. Back then, it was an attack on the stifling hypocrisy of a "People's Republic" run by a geriatric cabal of authoritarians. But for the skinheads in the video, it was a blunt statement of in-group solidarity and out-group hatred. "We are the people," they were saying. "But you, you are not people."

On the face of it, fighting a duel to the death over an insult seems ridiculous. Why take the chance of dying over mere words? But human beings derive much of their sense of self-worth from the respect and esteem of other humans around them. Many people are so deeply invested in their position in the social hierarchy that death is preferable to disrespect, scorn, and humiliation. Not so strange from that perspective.

One of the enduring lessons of the fall of the Roman republic is that it is extremely difficult for a polity to contain the ambitions of ruthless and aggressive people. And the constant nature of human politics is one of the reasons why the study of history remains instructive and relevant.

I've always had problems with the widespread theory that all societies are ultimately grounded in violence. This seems to be the received libertarian, Hobbesian view of the state. But as Harari succinctly puts it, "To say that a social order is maintained by military force immediately raises the question: what maintains military order? At least some of the commanders and soldiers must truly believe in something, be it God, honour, motherland, manhood or money."

Societies are maintained by coordinated belief systems, not violence. However, violence sometimes helps to coordinate belief systems, by frightening, expelling, torturing, imprisoning or killing those who refuse to adjust to the dominant belief system.

I had a conversation with a geneticist friend the other day, where we discussed the enormous potential danger of genetic technology. The problem, as I saw it, was that genetic engineering was likely to become a far greater threat to humanity's survival than thermonuclear weapons. Nukes have the advantage of being extremely technically complicated and difficult to assemble. Building such weapons requires thousands of people cooperating under the auspices of a nation state. But it is not difficult to imagine a near future where humans have genetically re-engineered much of their environment. This is already the case for much of the earth's surface. What will happen when genetic engineering becomes cheap, easy and widespread? Does anyone think that we, as a species, will be able to handle that kind of power responsibly? This scenario must give even the most blinkered techno-utopian optimist pause for thought.

The truth of the matter is that Britain was a brutal, exploitative, venal and racist colonial power which humiliated, robbed and beat down native peoples throughout the entire world. Nary a continent was left unscathed. The much-touted benefits of English laws, commerce, railways and cricket [!] must be weighed against the incredibly harmful political legacy the British bequeathed to their colonies. Masters of pitting subject groups against each other, they wilfully created many of the world's most intractable conflicts, from Kashmir to Nigeria to Iraq to Palestine.

I've always been a fan of this particular anecdote of Churchill's. I suppose we'll all be using the vocative case to address our furniture soon enough, given the ever-increasing proliferation of smart devices and appliances.

I was taken into a Form Room and told to sit at a desk. All the other boys were out of doors, and I was alone with the Form Master. He produced a thin greeny-brown covered book filled with words in different types of print.

"You have never done any Latin before, have you?" he said.

"No, sir."

"This is a Latin grammar." He opened it at a well-thumbed page. " You must learn this," he said, pointing to a number of words in a frame of lines. " I will come back in half an hour and see what you know."

Behold me then on a gloomy evening, with an aching heart, seated in front of the First Declension.

Mensa - a table
Mensa - O table
Mensam - a table
Mensae - of a table
Mensae - to or for a table
Mensa - by, with or from a table

What on earth did it mean? Where was the sense in it? It seemed absolute rigmarole to me. However, there was one thing I could always do: I could learn by heart. And I thereupon proceeded, as far as my private sorrows would allow, to memorize the acrostic-looking task which had been set me.

In due course the Master returned.

"Have you learnt it?" he asked.

"I think I can say it, sir," I replied; and I gabbled it off.

He seemed so satisfied with this that I was emboldened to ask a question.

"What does it mean, sir?"

"It means what it says. Mensa, a table. Mensa is a noun of the First Declension. There are five declensions. You have learnt the singular of the First Declension."

"But," I repeated," what does it mean?"

"Mensa means a table," he answered.

"Then why does mensa also mean O table," I enquired, "and what does O table mean?"

"Mensa, O table, is the vocative case," he replied.

"But why O table?" I persisted in genuine curiosity.

"O table – you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table." And then seeing he was not carrying me with him, "You would use it in speaking to a table."

"But I never do," I blurted out in honest amazement.

"If you are impertinent, you will be punished, and punished, let me tell you, very severely," was his conclusive rejoinder.

Such was my first introduction to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit.

Observe the sexual contrast: The bull, an adult male, powerful and wild, symbolizes masculinity. The girl, pre-pubescent, defiant, brave, but ultimately small and weak, is womankind. Typical condescending patriarchal sexism.

Just kidding. I kind of like it, actually. I prefer to think of the bull as signifying the markets -- a big, powerful, dangerous but ultimately domesticable animal -- being faced head on by the girl (humanity), who is young and naive and probably doesn't understand the danger. She's immature enough to think she can handle the deadly beast. She's probably wrong.

The main damage done to the Eastern Bloc countries by communism was cultural and psychological rather than economic. Even if central planning had brought prosperity, communist authoritarianism destroyed the public sphere and created apathetic, cynical, inward-looking citizens. And no polity can stay on the right path for long without vigilant oversight by a watchful, suspicious, invested public.

Speaking of The Economist: It's hilarious how they just can't stand France. It's too socialist. Half the French labour force works for the government, either directly or indirectly. Not enough "labour market flexibility" [the peons have too many rights].

Now, France certainly has its share of problems. But at least the French have effective and subsidised public transportation, delicious high-quality food and reasonably well-run public services. And people seem to enjoy life here. All of which is more than I can say for dank and immiserated England.

Finally! I've always dreamed of owning an Economist T-shirt. That way, everyone will know that I'm smarter than the average Time subscriber and that I enjoy being talked down to by a bunch of faux-liberal British public school prigs.

I especially like the shirt with the condescending call to action "Think responsibly". After all, everyone associates The Economist with responsible thinking such as backing George W. Bush, supporting the Iraq War and pretending that Britain is somehow a normal, functioning country.

One of my all-time favourites in the history of philosophy is Schopenhauer's comment on Kant's moral philosophy:

I should liken Kant to a man at a ball, who all evening has been carrying on a love affair with a masked beauty in the vain hope of making a conquest, when at last she throws off her mask and reveals herself to be his wife.

The point being that Kant deluded himself into thinking that he was developing a rational basis for morality whilst expounding principles that mostly reflected his own Pietist upbringing and the maxims he adopted on his mother's knee.

So this what it was like to be an educated 5th century Roman amongst the Germans. Sidonius Apollinaris writes:

Why... do you bid me compose a song dedicated to Venus... placed as I am among the long-haired hordes, having to endure Germanic speech, praising often with a wry face the song of the gluttonous Burgundian who spreads rancid butter on his hair? ... You don't have a reek of garlic and foul onions discharged upon you at early morn from ten breakfasts, and you are not invaded before dawn ... by a crowd of giants.

The scientists not only sanctified human feelings, but also found an excellent evolutionary reason to do so. After Darwin, biologists began explaining that feelings are complex algorithms honed by evolution to help animals make the right decisions. Our love, our fear and our passions aren't some nebulous spiritual phenomena good only for composing poetry. Rather, they encapsulate millions of years of practical wisdom. When you read the Bible, you get advice from a few priests and rabbis who lived in ancient Jerusalem. In contrast, when you listen to your feelings, you follow an algorithm that evolution has developed for millions of years, and that withstood the harshest quality tests of natural selection. Your feelings are the voice of millions of ancestors, each of whom managed to survive and reproduce in an unforgiving environment. Your feelings are not infallible, of course, but they are better than most alternatives. For millions upon millions of years, feelings were the best algorithms in the world. Hence in the days of Confucius, of Muhammed or Stalin, people should have listened to their feelings rather than to the teachings of Confucianism, Islam or communism.

I've always despised Harry S Truman. Not because he dropped the A-bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Any US President would have done the same. And not because of his whiny, petulant voice, or his thin, pursed lips, or even his banal, anti-intellectual speeches.

No, there's just something about the sheer mediocrity of the man that offends my sensibilities. He's like a character straight out of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis: A Missouri haberdasher exemplifying small-town American thrift, vacuousness and stupidity.

Truman was a uniquely American American. This is something he shares with Donald Trump, even though the two could not be more different.

When people realise how fast we are rushing towards the great unknown, and that they cannot count even on death to shield them from it, their reaction is to hope that somebody will hit the brakes and slow us down. But we cannot hit the brakes, for several reasons.

Firstly, nobody knows where the brakes are. While some experts are familiar with developments in one field, such as artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, big data or genetics, no one is an expert on everything. No one is therefore capable of connecting all the dots and seeing the full picture. Different fields influence one another in such intricate ways that even the best minds cannot fathom how breakthroughs on artificial intelligence might impact nanotechnology, or vice versa. Nobody can absorb all the latest scientific discoveries, nobody can predict how the global economy will look in ten years, and nobody has a clue where we are heading in such a rush. Since no one understands the system, no one can stop it.

Secondly, if we somehow succeed in hitting the brakes, our economy will collapse, along with our society. ... the modern economy needs constant and indefinite growth in order to survive. If growth ever stops, the economy won't settle down to some cosy equilibrium; it will fall to pieces. That's why capitalism encourages us to seek immortality, happiness and divinity.

Smart tech people -- especially in America -- are often astoundingly naive and ignorant of the world they live in. Jeff Atwood [of Stack Overflow fame] is a talented nerd, but his views on the nature of his country and its politics border on imbecility.

I assumed that the wheels of American government would turn, and reasonable decisions would be made by reasonable people. Some I would agree with, others I would not agree with, but I could generally trust that the arc of American history inexorably bends toward justice, towards freedom, toward equality. Towards the things that make up the underlying American dream that this country is based on.

Appian describes the last days of the Roman siege of Carthage (146 BC):

When daylight came Hasdrubal, enraged at the attack upon Megara, took the Roman prisoners whom he held, brought them upon the walls, in full sight of their comrades, and tore out their eyes, tongues, and tendons with iron hooks; of some he lacerated the soles of the feet, he cut off the fingers of others, and some he flayed alive. All who survived these tortures he hurled from the top of the walls. He thus gave the Carthaginians to understand that there was no possibility of peace with the Romans, and sought to fire them with the conviction that their only safety was in fighting. But the result was contrary to his intention, for the Carthaginians, conscience-stricken by these nefarious deeds, became timid instead of courageous, and hated Hasdrubal for depriving them of all hope of pardon.

A decision on the proposal that an all-out effort be undertaken for the development of the "Super" cannot in our opinion be separated from consideration of broad national policy. A weapon like the "Super" is only an advantage when its energy release is from 100-1000 times greater than that of ordinary atomic bombs. The area of destruction therefore would run from 150 to approximately 1000 square miles or more.

Necessarily such a weapon goes far beyond any military objective and enters the range of very great natural catastrophes. By its very nature it cannot be confined to a military objective but becomes a weapon which in practical effect is almost one of genocide.

It is clear that the use of such a weapon cannot be justified on any ethical ground which gives a human being a certain individuality and dignity even if he happens to be a resident of an enemy country. It is evident to us that this would be the view of peoples in other countries. Its use would put the United States in a bad moral position relative to the peoples of the world.

Any postwar situation resulting from such a weapon would leave unresolvable enmities for generations. A desirable peace cannot come from such an inhuman application of force. The postwar problems would dwarf the problems which confront us at present.

The application of this weapon with the consequent great release of radioactivity would have results unforeseeable at present, but would certainly render large areas unfit for habitation for long periods of time.
The fact that no limits exist to the destructiveness of this weapon makes its very existence and the knowledge of its construction a danger to humanity as a whole. It is necessarily an evil thing considered in any light.

I've always said that we Icelanders are an optimistic people. Nowhere is this more evident than in how we speak of the world wars. Instead of World War I and World War II, we have "The Former World War" and "The Latter World War", linguistically precluding the possibility of a third world war. If [when?] one ever does break out, it's back to the drawing board.